Explosion of the day of elections
-- official explanation of death on the death certificate of Naim Rahim Yacoubi
The New York Times often serves as a favored target for people irritated by its Overclass condescension, but occasionally it gets things right. Case in point is yesterday's superb story by Edward Wong headlined "Iraqis Who Died While Daring to Vote Are Mourned as Martyrs."
Wong focuses on some of the nearly 50 "victims of election day violence" whom Iraqis honor as people who gave their lives for democracy. Writes Wong,
They were policemen who tried to stop suicide bombers from entering polling centers, children who walked with elderly parents to cast votes, or--in the case of Mr. Yacoubi--a fishmonger who, after voting, took tea from his house to electoral workers at the school.
Wong quotes a neighbor of Naim Yacoubi:
All of us talked about the elections. We were waiting impatiently for this day so we could finally rid ourselves of all our troubles. Naim was just like any Iraqi who hoped for a better future for Iraq, who wanted stability for Iraq. We hoped that after the elections, the American forces would withdraw from our country.
After voting at 8:30 a.m., Mr. Yacoubi, "impressed by the dedication of the election workers," returned to the Baghdad voting site with tea. He had just dropped off the glasses when a suicide bomb exploded. At Mr. Yacoubi's burial in the holy cemetery of Najaf, a family friend said to Wong,
It's not the man who exploded himself who's a martyr. He wasn't a true Muslim. This is the martyr. What religion asks people to blow themselves up? It's not written in the Koran.
The neighbor added,
This is the courage of Iraqis, and we will change the face of history. This is our message to the countries of the world, especially those that are still under a dictatorship and want to walk the same road as the Iraqis.
Another martyr was Adil al-Nassar, a forty year old policeman who had joined the service a year ago. At a voting site in Baghdad he tackled a suicide bomber who had leaped in a line of women. The bomb exploded, killing Officer Nassar and several other people. Despite the explosion, voters returned to the site as if nothing had happened. Said the policeman's father-in-law,
He's a martyr now. He saved many lives for the greater good.
Words cannot describe the magnificence of this spirit.
Nor can words convey the obscenity of the anti-Iraqi forces. From the Sydney Morning Herald we learn that one of the "suicide" bombers was in fact a 19 year-old man with Downs Syndrome. Amar Ahmen Mohammad had the mind of a four-year old, but that didn't stop the courageous sons from strapping explosives onto him and sending toward a Baghdad polling site. Perhaps misunderstanding his instructions, Mohammad detonated his device early, killing only himself.
He, too, must be numbered among the martyrs of Election Day.
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